For a long time, I was really in the dark about why I enjoy Dragon Age: Origins as much as I do. It's is a pet peeve of mine when RPG's force you to push a button and watch your character repeatedly attack something over and over. Attack should be a button, not a mode. That's the reason I never got into another of Bioware's much lauded RPG's, Knights of the Old Republic (well, that and I didn't have an original Xbox.) However, this pet peeve of mine is a central aspect of Origins. It's how you play the game. Granted, there are activated spells and pound the attack button throughout combat even though it does nothing, but such a distance is created between the player pushing one button and the character going ape on an enemy that the player's emotional suture to the character should be broken, thus killing the illusion that the RPG is inherently trying to create.
But it doesn't. Despite my status as a self-avowed hater of the one-click, many-attack fighting style of this game, I've beaten it almost three times now. I beat it the first time with a Dwarf Noble named Cap'n. He was a black dwarf with ginger-red hair who fought with the biggest weapon I could find him. Then I beat it a second time with Mugen, a human noble and rouge who duel-wielded swords and was a cunning back-stabber. This time around, I used a Dalish elf, who was a rogue again because I realized partway through that I hate being a mage. In these last two playthroughs, very little changed. I had created Mugen as a perfect playthrough character. Everything turned out the best for every race in the land. However, whereas Mugen preferred the dark, fantastically evil Morrigan as his lady friend, my elf (Havanna Bob) chose Leliana, the shy former nun who is surprisingly down for a foursome. Besides that, I chose a different dwarven king in Orzammar because even though Bhelen leads his people better, he is the scummiest character in the game. So why did I do it and why am I telling you all this? The answer to both of these questions is that Dragon Age: Origins is one of the best cases for narrative in games that I've ever seen. I kept coming back because I didn't want to leave this world they'd created. Everything works so well together that it becomes somewhat of an addiction.
One of the big draws of this game was the origin part of Dragon Age: Origins. The player gets to choose a race, a class and an origin story, go through a fairly well-made character creation tool and then play out whichever one of the six origin stories they chose. These prologues are pretty good. They're appropriately dramatic and fun to play through. All of them end with the character being recruited into the Grey Wardens, who are the requisite order of badasses. The only problem is that they're fairly superfluous in the grand scheme of the game. They affect how certain characters talk to you, sure, but other than that the events in the origin are rarely mentioned. Which race you pick can greatly change the outcome of the story and the class affects how you play throughout the game but the origin doesn't really affect how you see the darkspawn or anything. The only thing it does is give you a little more insight into whichever race you pick and can make you hate the guts of certain characters (killing Arl Howe as a Human Noble is a fantastic feeling.)
After the prologue, every character regardless of races goes to the fortress of Ostagar where they meet the cocky new king who is obviously going to die very soon after you meet him so who cares. There's going to be a big battle with the Darkspawn, evil monster people, and you learn more about the Grey Wardens and their badassery. By the end of this story arc when Ostagar goes horribly wrong and the next one begins when you start gather armies of dwarves, elves and men, the game starts feeling more and more like a cheap Lord of the Rings ripoff. The game starts to turn things around, however, once you get to the small village of Lothering.
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| Lothering. Katie said I need more picures |
And this is why the characters work so well. They're funny, engaging and very well-acted (with some exceptions, children being the most notable.) There isn't one companion in the game that I dislike. None are too preachy, too stupid or too bland. Even the aforementioned Sten who acts without emotion based solely on duty has that lack of any humanity, has a strange likability to him and, even stranger, a plausibility. . Morrigan is probably my favorite, though I enjoy Leliana and Alistair as well. She is a cruel, evil bitch who is just trying to be practical. She does soften up, but not to any degree that's unbelievable. It's just enough to give us hope for her.
The settings are fantastic as well, if a bit cliche. The dwarves live underground. The elves live in the forest. The humans have thatch huts. However, within these cliches, they again breathe a new life. Darkspawn also live underground, so the dwarves have to constantly fight them in the ruins of their once great empire. They also have a lot of intrigue within their nobility caste (oh and there's a caste system) that creates opportunities for some great satire. The elves that live in the forest are called the Dalish and they are the traditional J.R.R. Tolkien elves in many ways. However, there are also city elves who were enslaved by the humans long ago. This creates a lot of tension if you pick city elf as your origin. There is also friction between the Chantry (Ferelden's church) and the mages. Magic is seen as a curse by many and any mages not confined to a place that the Chantry can keep an eye on them (called The Circle) are labeled apostates and are executed on sight or arrested. Bioware did a fantastic job of creating a country on the edge of destruction from the outside that is leading to fractures in the society on the inside. The way all of these dramas play out are fantastic and mostly up to the player.
Now, I've gone on and on about the story, but haven't mentioned too much about gameplay. This is because, as I mentioned, I'm not a huge fan. They have plenty of awesome weapons and armor to choose from as well as spells and special moves called talents. However, the gameplay itself (at least on the Xbox 360.) is somewhat boring. The one-click fighting is lame, some bosses have really annoying knock-down moves or paralysis moves that don't allow you to fight back and overall it's just not that satisfying.There's also quite a few bugs that pop up all over the game, from problems with the conversation system to being pushed around by your teammates in a fight. It's not terrible, by any means, it's just not the reason this game is so great. It's great because of the world they created.
This game is a perfect illustration of video games as a narrative device. You do need good gameplay, and hopefully have great gameplay, for a game to work. However, if there are holes in the game's battle system or if the graphics aren't top notch (and they aren't as evidenced by the sex scenes) or if the music can be somewhat annoying at times (rewatch that sex scene,) a fantastic story with engaging characters can work wonders. If you have any doubt, search for Alistair slash fic. On second thought, don't. Just assume there's a lot because there is and now I can't get certain images out of my head. The point is that the people who played this game and have been writing about it have barely mentioned gameplay. It's all about the story and the deep, immersive world Bioware created. In the realm of RPG's, story and world are the most important components. Everything else is important as well, but not as much as in a puzzle game or a shooter. You can forgive a glitch here and there if you still get the sexy witch in the epilogue.
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